Laudator Temporis Acti

Plautus, Epidicus 107-108 (tr. Wolfgang de Melo):

Are you ashamed because you bought a captive girl born in a good family in the booty? Who will there be who'd find fault with you for that?

idne pudet te, quia captivam genere prognatam bono
in praeda es mercatus? quis erit vitio qui id vortat tibi?

George E. Duckworth on in praeda (line 108):

Studemund (JbPh 113, 1876, p. 67) proposed de praeda which is frequently found in Plautus; cf. Epid. 44, 64, 621 (ex praeda, BEJ; de praeda, A, which reading avoids hiatus), Capt. 34 (cf. Lindsay, Captiui, ad loc.), 111, 453, Pseud. 1164, Truc. 567. Abraham (JbPh, Suppl. 14, 1884, p. 201) agrees with Studemund and accepts no preposition with praeda except de and cum (for cum praeda, cf. Epid. 381, 394, Merc. 498, Poen. 647); see also Sicker, Ph, Suppl. 11 (1908), p. 243. Ex praeda is found in Epid. 608, for which Abraham likewise substitutes de praeda; cf. however Varro, De Re Rust. 2,10,4: e praeda sub corona emit. Goetz (1st ed.), Goetz-Schoell, Leo, Ammendola, and Ernout read de praeda here; Ussing, Goetz (2nd ed.), and Lindsay, in praeda; in 608 all read ex praeda with the exception of Goetz-Schoell, Ammendola, and Ernout, who mark a lacuna. It seems advisable to follow the MSS. in both passages. For in praeda in a somewhat different sense, cf. Men. 135: ecqua in istac pars inest praeda mihi?

Studemund = Wilhelm Studemund, review of Fritz Schmidt, Quaestiones de Pronominum Demonstrativorum Formis Plautinis (Berlin: Weidmann, 1875), in Neue Jahrbücher für Philologie und Paedogogik 113 (1876) 57-76

Abraham = Gulielmus Abraham, "Studia Plautina," Jahrbücher für classische Philologie, Supplementband 14 (1885) 179-244

Sicker = Eugenius Sicker, "Novae Quaestiones Plautinae Praecipue ad Originem Duarum Recensionum Pertinentes," Philologus, Supplementband 11.2 (1908) 177-252

See Gonzalez Lodge, Lexicon Plautinum, Vol. II (Leipzig: B.G. Teubner, 1926-1933), p. 264, for ablative praeda after various prepositions: These lines provide a striking example of the difference between ancient and modern views on slave trading.

Jean-Léon Gérôme (1824-1904), "Marché romain aux esclaves" (i.e. Roman Slave Market), Baltimore, Walters Art Museum (accession number 37.885):